


Hide Your Heart

by alcego



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, i... honestly have nothing to say
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-12 16:24:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11740761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alcego/pseuds/alcego
Summary: We put up walls to hide our hearts. It is a desperate ploy, one used to protect ourselves from hurt, but all too often it removes us from the comfort we need to get through the day.





	Hide Your Heart

**Author's Note:**

> i honestly don't know wtf happened here but i can just about guarantee that nonny was _not_ expecting this

How was it possible to feel so alone with someone laying right there next to him? Keith wasn’t sure, but reading Lance’s silence felt like cocking a loaded gun and he needed this to stop. “Lance, look at me.” 

Lance flinched away from the gentle words, and Keith felt a part of him shrivel up inside. He wasn’t good at comforting people. Even when he knew what they wanted help with he felt awkward, stunted in every way that mattered. For a while Lance had made him feel as if maybe that wasn’t the case, but now he wasn’t so sure. 

He wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to do, but he pulled Lance in closer to his chest, seeking some comfort in the warm touch of naked skin against his own. The warmth was there, but the comfort was not. 

Biting back a sigh, Keith pulled his arms away from Lance and rolled onto his back. He felt hollow then, tired as he stared at the blue glow illuminating the ceiling of the castle ship. It seemed everything was blue now.

Lance sniffled, and Keith went stiff. “Shit, Lance- I didn’t hurt you, did I?” Panic dragged its way up his throat, dug its way into his tongue. He tried to find something to say, anything to fix what had happened, but no words came.

But he didn’t need to speak, because Lance was sitting up now, wiping the tears from his eyes. He fisted the crumpled bedsheets beside him and hung his head in what Keith could only describe as  _shame_. But- why would Lance be ashamed?

Keith was upright now. He wasn’t entirely sure when that had happened, not entirely sure when his hand had ghosted its way to Lance’s cheek to wipe the budding tears out of his eyes.  

“Why are you crying?”

It was quiet for too long before Lance raised his head, finally  _finally_  turning to look Keith in the eye. Lance’s eyes were rimmed with red, the skin irritated by the rough way he’d shoved the tears away, but Keith hardly noticed that. He was lost in how blue Lance’s eyes were, how  _softly_  they watched him. Whatever he’d been expecting to see in Lance’s eyes, that wasn’t it.

A smile found its way onto Lance’s lips then, and he pushed his forehead against Keith’s. “It’s nothing bad,” he whispered, finally. “I just-” He stopped and sighed. “You deserve better, Keith.”

Keith swore his heart stopped for a moment before it took off, racing into his thoughts and pouring out into his words. “I don’t even deserve you,” he whispered, dropping his gaze to look anywhere else but Lance. He was loathe to lose the comforting pressure of Lance’s head against his, but suddenly it felt less like his lover’s kiss than it did a warning. It told him that the floodgates were opening, that the time to talk  _feelings_  had arrived, and he wasn’t ready.

Would he ever really be ready?

Maybe Lance had missed the horror in Keith’s face at letting something so vulnerable slip, or maybe he saw and wanted to soothe the pain there. There was no way to know, nothing to tell Keith what the truth was, and he was spiraling, circling away from the warm comfort that their afterglow had offered.

“You can’t really think that,” Lance said, his hand finally leaving the sheets to touch Keith’s shoulder. Keith wished he could say he didn’t gasp at the unexpected contact, but he did, and Lance was never one to miss things like that. 

He withdrew his hand and held it awkwardly in the air between them. Keith wanted to disappear, to go back in time and pretend none of this had ever happened- no. That was a lie. 

Even as Lance looked away, Keith knew that if he was given the chance he wouldn’t change any of the things that had brought them to bed. Knew that if he had to choose between heartrending pain and temporary bliss he would choose the latter every time.

After all, everyone he’d ever loved had already been taken from him. He’d take the sweet moments along with the bitter, if only so that he could replay the memory of a shared heat and a kiss so tender that he’d melted.

That is what he told himself as Lance slipped from under his sheets and avoided his gaze while dressing.  _He’d have left me, too, in the end,_  he assured himself as Lance sat on the edge of the bed to pull on his shoes. But most of all, he ignored the way his heart shattered as the door hissed shut with Lance on the wrong side.

 _There’s nothing I can’t live without,_ he told himself as the tears ran in hot tracks down his face.

**Author's Note:**

> Fill this writer's empty heart and leave a comment!
> 
>  
> 
> [I have a tumblr!](http://alcego.tumblr.com)


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